


Sunsets And Car Crashes

by Kaoz



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Falling Skies
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-26
Updated: 2015-11-19
Packaged: 2018-03-25 18:59:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3821281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaoz/pseuds/Kaoz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, finding what you lost hurts more than losing them ever did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

I still remember 'before'. When the skies were exactly where they'd always been. Right over my head, blue and full of fluffy white clouds, like you'd picture in a movie…

The sound of birds in the trees. The neighbors dog barking, especially when the bar-b-q was on and we usually had it Saturday afternoons, as long as it wasn’t too cold.

I remember being a normal girl, with a cute boyfriend my parents adored and the sweetest best friend any girl would be lucky to have…

I remember when it all fell apart. My skies crashed a couple of years before everyone else. My life became the stuff of nightmares and fables long before everyone else believed in it.

When the skies fell… When we started fighting a war just to survive.

**- <>-**


	2. Dreams and Disasters

_She's going to be the new kid in school. She'll have to make friends once again. She'll have to learn her way around a new city and more than likely get lost doing so. But its all in the name of adventure and she's not alone so what does another move and a new house matter anyway?_

_"Here she is. The Kash house."_

_She cleared her throat, a side glance and the quirk of her lips before he laughed._

_"Right," he chuckled getting out of the car and opened the back door to let their girl out.  When all three stood on the sidewalk looking at their new house he grinned, arms wrapping about them both. "The Rhoades-Kash house."_

_"I like the sound of that." Adalene tucked her hand into the pocket of her coat, her left hooked under her daughters hood to keep warm._

_"It’s a pretty house. Is it ours or a loaner from the university?" Kash wondered. She studied the clean lines of the house that would be her sanctuary until it was time to move on. She was giving it two years but mostly hoped the move wouldn’t happen in the middle of high school._  'That would suck.'

_"Loaner?" Augustus quirked an eyebrow as he glanced at his daughter. Her thick black hair was confined under a dark rose knitted cap, the tip of her nose was slightly pink due to the cold. He wished the move hadn't come in the middle of the school year but he'd promised it wouldn’t happen again._

_"Can I paint my room?"_

_"Not black." Augustus replied automatically. It was the latest of a long list of confusing requests from his daughter._

_"Black is not a color." Adalene added before Kash had the chance to start her 'argument' ._

_"Actually-."_

_"Go find your room, Kash."  Augustus pointed to the stairs, the keys held in his hand which she neatly swiped and dashed up the front steps._

_Adalene kept a keen eye on her daughter and the layer of ice in patches on the walk. Not once did Kash slip, she avoided the patches without looking and took the steps two at a time. She had the front door open in seconds and was up to the second floor exploring the available rooms._

_"I think she takes after you." Augustus noted. He wrapped both arms around his wife who looked up at him but he'd also noticed their daughters ease of movement. "Kash wont be one of them, Addy. Four or five years… she’ll be safe then."_

_"It’s the now I worry about." Adalene admitted. "If it is her, they’ll come and not care who I am or how many generations of Rhoades have served the council. They’ll take our daughter and use her like they’ve done to so many others."_

_"Then we move." Augustus assured. "We take her and go and don’t look back."_

_"It isn't that easy, Auggie. The council-."_

_"Can suck it." Augustus scowled. He caught her look of surprise and the twitch of her lips that said she was trying not to laugh. "Yeah, I said it. She's rubbing off on me, it happens now and then."_

_"Don’t encourage her bad language." Adalene reprimanded but she was amused and that’s what he'd wanted._

_"He'll warns us." Augustus assured. "He promised you, he would. I trust him." He kissed her cheek and flicked her nose. "I trust you both."_

_Adalene wasn’t so sure it would matter. But they wouldn’t have to worry about it right then. All they had to do was unpack and get settled._

**- <>-**

The quiet woke her. It was the hardest part to get used to. The quiet was not her friend and it certainly didn’t like her much. Noise gave her something else to focus on, it kept memories of loved ones dead or lost, at bay. But even she couldn’t stay awaked indefinitely, so when her eyes closed it was always with the knowledge they'd be there, waiting.

"Another one?"

"Same as always." Kash shrugged off the concern, avoiding eye contact and averting her face. "Get any sleep?"

"Do I look any prettier?" he retorted dryly.

"Dirtier." A third voice chimed in.

They both turned to the trees where a boy materialized from the shadows.

"Your patch used to be black. Right?"

"Oh, ha, ha." Xander sighed. "Smart ass." He smiled tiredly and sat back down, his back resting against the tree trunk.

"He must be delirious or something because he keeps changing my name." the boy knelt close to Xander and spoke slowly. "My name is Kai. K. A. I."

Xander shook his head, amused and shoved on the boys knee to send him on his ass in the dirt. "Like I said; smart ass."

Kash watched, she could feel the smile as she listened to them but it didn’t make it to her face. There wasn’t much to smile about, there hadn't been for a long while.

"We should go." Kash quietly moved towards the huddled figures curled up on the cold ground. Three more teens they were responsible for. "Before something finds us."

Xander sighed, he groaned getting to his feet. He felt every bone in his body protest and wondered again how many times he'd be able to slip past death's hand. He'd been side by side with two Slayers most of his life and then they'd ended it all and he'd stupidly assumed they were getting that happily ever after. A well deserved happy ending to their stories.

Until the skies fell. … And aliens began to wipe out all human life.

**- <>-**

_The silence only lasted a few moments but it felt much longer to the group assembled. They stood in a ragged circle, under the light of a moon, in another cemetery. They'd all lost count of how many they'd been in since it all started._

_"We just ended it."_

_The others just nodded. The salt and pepper head of the oldest in the group raised from the glasses he was studiously wiping, to look upon the young women and men. He smiled sadly and shook his head, sighing._

_"Without magic…"_

_"I'm going to miss that." Willow sighed heavily._

_"With our luck," Xander looked at the stars over their heads. "Something is going to happen." He glanced at Faith and Buffy. "You're still Slayers. So the Powers That Be still have something they're keeping you girls powered up for."_

_"He has a point." Buffy conceded grudgingly. She hated the idea of having to keep fighting. It was all she was good at now but it didn’t mean she had to like it. And having that normal life was always going to be out of her reach._

_"Well, they can suck it." Faith grumbled. "I mean it." She said to the stares resting on her. "Why do we gotta keep dying for them? Why don’t they get off their asses and -."_

_"Annihilate the universe?"_

_All eyes went to the quietest in the group. Oz just returned the stares calmly._

_"That would be bad." Xander agreed._

_"It's always bad." Buffy huffed. The silence that followed was awkward in that they all felt as though something had to be said but didn’t know what to say. They'd_ just _ended magic. All magic._

_"I guess…" Willow looked around the group then shrugged. "I guess we just enjoy the quiet until its time to fight the good fight once again."_

_"I wonder what this next one is going to be?" Xander arched en eyebrow hoping for ideas but no one uttered a word. "Nothing? Really?"_

_"I doubt it will have anything to do with magic." Giles finally said.  He looked at them, these children he'd sort of raised. He'd been with them through horrible events that no one at their young ages should have gone through. Yet they all made it through somehow, together. "Don’t drift apart." He urged with just a hint of sadness in his voice. "We should all stay in touch. Where ever it is we go…" he was hoping they would all stay together. He'd grown to care for most of them, like his own children, if he'd ever had them._

_"Once a week, Giles." Buffy smiled and turned on her heel. "Tuesdays." She threw a wave over her shoulder, never looking back._

_"If no one gets kidnapped." Xander muttered under his breath._

_"Got places to see, dudes to do…" Faith grinned, loving the wince on Giles face as she threw that last part out.  "Be seeing ya, G-man."_

_Xander stood awkwardly with Giles watching as Oz and Willow silently stared at each other. They'd been through a lot and the history between them needed some attention if they were going to figure out how to move forward. Be it together or apart._

_"See you guys." Oz quietly stepped forward and held his hand out to Willow. She took it, smiling shyly and waved to them as they walked off._

_"So." Xander smiled._

_"Good night, Xander." Giles sighed heavily and  started walking off._

_"Wait! That’s it?" Xander called, he jogged after Giles already thinking of movies he hadn't watched that he wanted to see._

**- <>-**


	3. Remember to Forget

They had grown used to the silence, noise would only make them targets. The little bits of conversation that broke the monotony of their day and the walk were held in soft whispers that Xander could barely make a word or two of. And that was only due to the little extra boost he got from alien tech he'd come to sort of accept. There wasn’t much choice if he wanted to keep breathing and it wasn’t so bad.  He would have preferred to have both eyes but the alien tech didn’t extend that far.  If he wanted to remain human and out of alien control.  

The kids were something else, survived because … well, there wasn’t any way to explain _why_ they were the ones who lived and the others hadn't. There was too much unexplained and not many who could find the answers. Their existence had become one long fight just to survive another day, to draw another breath and hope that someone, somewhere would finally get one up on the aliens. Kick them  off Earth and out of the Milky Way.

"You've got your thinking face." Kash noted as she kept a steady stride alongside him. Xander barely looked at her. "Xander…" she sighed.

"I didn’t mind it so much." He spoke softly, trying to pick the right words because the last thing he wanted was to make her mad or push her away. "Well, after a while, I didn’t mind it as much." He corrected.

"What?"

"Having  mini-Slayers as my personal guards." He sighed a soft chuckle remembering  the girls and their constant presence. "Buffy, she was making sure I didn’t get eaten, sacrificed…  you name it." He sighed and looked up at the sky.

"As I heard it, she had reason to worry." Kash glanced at him, wondering where he was going and worried too. She didn’t want Xander getting lost in the past, it would be too easy to give up and she couldn’t lose him too.

"They exaggerated the stories, Kash." He waved off the concern and kept walking. "Ok, so I was almost eaten by a praying mantis thing. And I spent a few weeks possessed by a hyena. I mean, the skills left over from that Halloween I was a soldier have come in handy. More than once." He pointed out.

"You fell in love with a vengeance demon, Xander. And then left her at the altar." Kash watched him but the flash of pain at mention of Anya couldn’t be hidden. "Why are you going there? Why even think about them? They're all dead, Xander. There isn't any magic to bring them back and even if there was, do you think they'd want to be here? Aliens have … _destroyed_ … everything." She tried to keep her voice from breaking but failed. At least she managed to keep her tears in check.

"Not everything, Kash." Xander laid a rough hand on her shoulder and gave a sharp tug. It barely moved her.

**- <>-**

_They rushed into the Bunker, the broken and bleeding man carried by three young women, was set on a metal table._

_"What happened?" the sharp voice cut through the  shouts. The eldest turned to face the witch, an older version with a hard edge. Her red hair was cut short, framing her face in a riot of curls thanks to the humidity._

_"We couldn’t get to him. I'm sorry."_

_"We were pinned down and one of those crittery things came at him from behind."_

_Willow lay a gentle hand on her best friends face, the familiar patch was a reminder to all of them of how easily they could lose a loved one._

_"Turn him over." Willow ordered as she unsnapped the bullet-proof vest. Three sets of hands, very carefully, maneuvered Xander so he lay face down. His shirt was damp with blood from the jagged gash and a feeble groan drew their attention._

_"Did I win?" Xander muttered. He could feel pinpricks of pain along his left side that came and went. It scared him and Willow knew it._

_"Don’t die on us, Xander." Maya knelt, a bloody hand gripping the edge of the table to lock eyes with him. "And you'll get your prize."_

_"Pie?" Xander muttered as his brow furrowed. "…don’t want pie…"_

_"Xander?" Willow slipped her hand around his neck, feeling for a pulse which was feeble at best but at least there was still one. She didn’t think twice about what she was going to do because saving her best friends life is all that mattered._

'He'd do the same for me.'

**- <>-**


End file.
